The story behind Green Bay Packaging's plan for a new $580 million mill

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Will Kress, Green Bay Packaging president and CEO, announces a $500 million new paper mill to be built next to the current company site on Quincy Street on Tuesday, June 12, 2018, in Green Bay, Wis. Gov. Scott Walker, Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt and Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach attended the announcement. Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Will Kress, Green Bay Packaging president and CEO, announced plans in June for a $500 million new paper mill to be built next to the current company site on Quincy Street. Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Gov. Scott Walker comments on the announced $500 million Green Bay Packaging paper mill to be built next to the current company site on Quincy Street during a press event Tuesday, June 12, 2018, in Green Bay, Wis. Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

It was February and Streckenbach had been asked to join Green Bay and state officials at a meeting with a papermaking company. Kimberly-Clark’s tentative plan to close mills in Neenah and Fox Crossing, announced in late January, was still fresh in his mind.

“When the Kimberly-Clark headlines came out, you’re thinking, ‘That’s too close to home. When is it going to happen here?’” Streckenbach said. “You get the call that there’s a meeting involving a large papermaking company in our community, and you get prepared. Fortunately, the meeting was an opportunity instead of, ‘Here’s the bad news.’”

Local government officials said a company like Green Bay Packaging doesn’t always give the community a shot at retaining them.

After the fact, state and local governments came up with $100 million in incentives, but Kimberly-Clark hasn't reversed its decision, though it is still in discussions with state officials and employee unions. Oshkosh B’Gosh was bought by Carter’s Inc. in 2005 and by 2009, Winnebago County bought its empty headquarters building in downtown Oshkosh after local officials didn’t get a chance to retain the namesake clothing company.

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Green Bay Packaging CEO Will Kress talks about the decision to invest more than $500 million in building a new mill.
Jeff Bollier, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

“We’ve seen the stories of how when a large corporation gets bought out or moves, it can have a long impact on a community,” Streckenbach said. “We were pleased to hear Green Bay Packaging, whether it’s the (Kress) family or its board, was interested in the city of Green Bay and Brown County and wanted to stay here.”

Green Bay Packaging could have followed Kimberly-Clark’s lead and announced plans to close the mill and lay off 600 employees of its own. It could have decided to buy the raw paper it needs rather than produce it here. It could have followed the paper industry’s general move out of Wisconsin, where 12 of 52 mills have closed since 1994, and built a new mill in Missouri or Indiana or Oklahoma where it’d be closer to suppliers, interstates and shipping companies.

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Green Bay Packaging is seeking nearly $90 million in public support for construction of a new $580 million paper mill on the city's north side.
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Instead, Green Bay Economic Development Director Kevin Vonck said local officials and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. seized the opportunity they’d been given, coming up with nearly $90 million in incentives: $60 million in tax credits, $23 million in property tax reimbursements and $5.3 million in infrastructure improvements.

It was enough to convince the 92-year-old company it should build a new, $580 million paper mill in Green Bay instead of two other, much cheaper courses of action.

“We are lucky and appreciate they gave us the chance to work with them first,” Vonck said. “There’s a lot of hungry cities and (state) governors out there willing to make an aggressive play for business. They’re out there, so if word gets out they’re thinking about this, we could have been in a really difficult spot.”

Green Bay Packaging Executive Vice President Bryan Hollenbach said the company’s sentimental connections to its employees and the Green Bay area motivated it to explore if the mill could be viable here. The financial incentives offered sealed the deal.

“Our employees have a lot to do with the decision,” Hollenbach said. “But the way the city, county and state worked together showed us this was the place. … Hopefully, it shows Wisconsin is open for business, that it’s a state you can work with.”

'The impact will be huge'

Green Bay Packaging expects the new mill to take almost three years to build and bring online. Miron Construction, which has been tapped to construct the mill, estimates it will have 450 to 800 workers on site for the duration of the project.

Once completed, the company will produce 330-inch containerboard compared with the current mill's 164-inch output. Hollenbach estimates the new mill will nearly triple capacity and increase the amount of work for the 700-plus companies that supply raw materials and deliver products to customers.

“When they contacted us earlier this year, then we realized the size and extent of the investment they’d be making,” Vonck said. “This is a brand-new facility. If you look at the papermaking industry, this just doesn’t happen that often in this country. The impact will be huge: Just look at the businesses that feed into this as well as the employees who live, work and spend money here.”

The impact on the community extends well beyond the 600 employees retained and potential to create 200 more jobs at Green Bay Packaging operations in Wisconsin.

“They’re within the top 10 companies that support the United Way each year,” said Brown County United Way Executive Director Robyn Davis. “Green Bay Packaging’s support goes beyond finances, though. Green Bay Packaging provides boxes out there to help with collection drives. Their employees help out throughout the community as volunteers. They’re really supporting a whole network of care for the community.”

The new mill will increase the region’s tax base in a significant way, too. Schreiber Foods’ downtown headquarters, built in 2013, has an assessed value of $42.8 million, according to city property records. The development agreement approved this past week by the City Council estimates the new mill will boost the value of the mill property from $18.1 million to $64.5 million. City officials cannot say for sure what the final valuation will be because the state sets the property value for industrial land.

The increase in value means annual taxes will jump from $412,600 to $1.4 million when the mill is completed, though the company will get 90 percent of new taxes generated reimbursed each year until the total reaches $23 million.

The impact doesn’t stop there.

'I hope their example resonates'

The Mark Anthony has become a mainstay on the Fox River since it started sucking up PCB-contaminated sediment in 2009.

It's taken nearly a decade to dredge up the polychlorinated biphenyls used to produce carbonless copy paper in the 1950s and 1960s and spread through the manufacture of recycled paper products.

It’s taken more than half a century and close to $1 billion to identify the scope of the problem, come up with a solution and find the funding.

This will not be a worry in 2071, 50 years after Green Bay Packaging’s new mill comes online. The company intends to work with N.E.W. Water on a water reclamation system that will result in no wastewater drawn from or discharged into the Fox River.

The new mill will be powered by natural gas boilers instead of coal-fired ones, a move that will cut sulfur dioxide emissions from about 900 tons-per-year to less than 100 tons. Nitrogen oxide emissions are expected to drop from 300 tons per year to about 100 tons.

“This mill will be significantly better for the environment,” Hollenbach said.

“Sometimes, Green Bay Packaging’s environmental stewardship gets overlooked,” he said. “I think it’s really great we can build around a company that takes old boxes and turns them into new ones without any wastewater discharge. We talk about advanced manufacturing, well these are the types of companies we want to work with in terms of being a steward of the environment.”

Streckenbach said the financial investment will be significant to the overall health of Brown County’s economy, but he said the mill will also contribute to the county’s overall health.

“That’s putting a stake in the ground that says Brown County, northeastern Wisconsin, is a great place to do business,” Streckenbach said. “I’m hoping their example resonates with other expansions businesses are looking at.”